His elbows fail                                    One.

to find hold of the canvas,

slickened with his own sweat             Two.

pooling from the spring

of his crumpled figure.                       Three.

Petroleum jelly gobbed to his face

couldn’t deflect the straight                Four.

right that sent him reeling.

What remains cakes with dust            Five.

scuffled from their boots.

His cheek, streaked with blood,          Six.

begins to stalactite. Its meteors

dazzle. Plunging rubies catch             Seven.

the flash of headline photographs.

His knees groan under                        Eight.

the center of his shifting

mass. A moment’s wobble                 Nine.

leaves his legs as he nods

the referee away and taps his gloves together.

Steven O. Young Jr. is knitted into the Great Lakes' mitten, where he occasionally slathers soundstages with his body weight of paint. His latest works can or will be found within Progenitor, Great Lakes Review, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Flint Hills Review, and L=Y=R=A.